ETEC 597 Research Assignment
Technology Developments in the Library and Distance Education:
A Brave New World
ince its inception around 1883, distance education has seen a dramatic change in form. From the first correspondence courses in print, to audio communication through radio and audio tape, to the current developments in two-way synchronous teleconferences, distance education has changed in form and features. Libraries, too, are seeing changes in form and features with the advent of the new technology. But how do the changes in distance education and in library information technology affect each other? Or do they?
ome changes in the form and features of public and educational libraries are quite visible. The old card catalogs have been replaced by online computer "catalogs." In addition, more and more documents and text can be found in their entirety in electronic sources, such as the World Wide Web. Although some lament the "passing of the paper," others focus on the benefits of this new technology.
rian Helstein brings up the point that online catalog systems offer efficiency that is impossible with the traditional card catalog. Card catalogs, if compiled correctly, have three cards for each publication: the author card, the title card, and the subject card. When a change needs to be made, one must physically take each card and change it individually. With an online catalog, changes and updates can be made much more easily and efficiently. In addition, translating text into the electronic medium saves precious documents from becoming embrittled due to the acidic paper. He states:
"A 1985-86 collection survey of Louise Darling Biomedical Library's 500,000 volumes (part of UCLA's six million volume collection), indicated that 7% of the collection was already embrittled. When I left in spring of 1992, my best professional estimate was that no less than 25% of the collection was so far along the course of embrittlement, that by the year 2000, the materials contained between the covers would be unavailable for routine use."
here is a down side to all this library technology, however. Finding information online can be difficult and frustrating. Gerald Phillips, in his introduction to the article by Brian Helstein, discusses the effects of electronic media on the way people think. Although technology has increased the speed and efficiency of library work, a total conversion to electronic media threatens to extinguish the luxury of browsing through dusty volumes to make a serendipitous discovery of new information. As he writes:
...when one goes wandering off in gopherspace and encounters 'empty' too many times, like a unrewarded dog, a mind stops salivating. One finds mostly what one is looking for in electronic catalogues.The new information technology makes library and internet searches efficient, but only if one knows exactly what one is looking for, and precisely what one is doing!
n distance education courses, the learner works quite independently. Unfortunately, this isolation can be a hindrance when using information technology for research. Mary Bludnicki details Empire State College's program to assist their distance learning students in this area. Each distance ed. course has a tutor who works one-on-one with the students. These mentors help DE students learn "...that research is a process, not just a one-shot deal." In addition, Empire State College offers a print resource called the Finder's Guide. It contains information on libraries, book stores and publishers, internet resources, and NY state and other agencies. Between this print resource, the college's online resources, and class mentors, Empire State College is working to meet the needs of their distance learners.
ot only do we have all of this text information located with information technology, we also have a vast amount of text information located in the technology. In Mindweave, the editors include research done by Jim Dunn in Guttenberg, New Jersey. Mr. Dunn tested the relative efficiency of text in print versus that on computer (CRT - Cathode Ray Tube). His study found that the children tested not only preferred the CRT medium, but actually scored significantly higher in this CRT mode. Dunn warns that there are a number of possible reasons to explain this, including the sheer excitement of the new medium. Nevertheless, his findings indicate that there may be a definite benefit to the transformation of print into the electronic media, in addition to the rescue of text from the acidic embrittlement of paper documents.
s we can see, technological advances have become an important part of libraries everywhere. More and more information from "traditional" library sources can be searched by means of electronic medium, allowing students to search from their dorm rooms or homes and thereby make the most efficient use of their time when actually in the library. In some cases, students need not even go to the library, with the increasing number of journals and documents on the Internet and World Wide Web. Distance education is the perfect forum to take advantage of this new technology, as learners begin to access information through home computers and other non-traditional means. Online search tools and online documents are becoming more and more a part of our world. And distance learners, with the right training and guidance, are an important part of that brave new world.
Resources
Bludnicki, M. (June 1998). Supporting virtual learning for adult students. T.H.E. Journal [Online]. Available: http://www.thejournal.com/98/current/698feat1.html
Helstien, B. (October 1994). Libraries: once and future. Interpersonal Computing and Technology: An Electronic Journal for the 21st Century [Online], (4) 2. 53-67. Available: http://www.helsinki.fi/science/optek/1994/n4/helstien.txt
Dunn, J. (1989). Print vs CRT: a comparison of reading modalities. In Mason, R. and Kaye, A. (Eds.), Mindweave: Communication, Computers and Distance Education (pp. 252-254). Oxford: Pergamon Press. [Online]. Available: http://www-icdl.open.ac.uk/mindweave/mindweave.html
Moore, M. and Kearsley, G. (1996). Distance education. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company.
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